Community at Microsoft

This topic explores community and social media at Microsoft. It includes sections that broadly categorize community and social media tools as well as guidance on which sets of tools might best be used to meet the information needs of community at a given stage in the product or content lifecycle.

As with all pages on the TechNet Wiki, your participation is encouraged! 

Community and Social Media Tools

There are a number of different tools available. Broad categories are established in the table below, from familiar, such as Twitter or Facebook to perhaps less familiar e.g. virtual worlds such as Linden Lab's Second Life™.

Category	Examples	Description
Blogs	Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal	Publish an article, collect feedback through comments, votes, links and other mechanisms. Can be individual or group managed.
Micro-Blogs	Twitter  identi.ca	Tools that let users share short messages to interested individuals through links, subscriptions or a system of search with unique tags.
Forums	TechNet Stack Overflow	Question and answers and other threaded discussions organized by community interest, often with feedback mechanisms to indicate state of thread (answered, etc).
Comments	Scripting Guys Blog	Enables threaded discussions on other assets such as articles, products, activities and people.
Social Networking	Facebook Linked In	Sites that enable individual relationships and links through voluntary associations based on interests, public and private, professional or personal.
Crowd Sourcing		Site that rallys users and communities around specific tasks, goals, events or efforts. Could also be driven by community across multuiple categories of social tools.
Wiki & Collaboration	Wikipedia, TechNet Wiki	Publishing tools that encourage collaboration through shared document authorship and open and transparent processes.
Social Bookmarking	Delicious	Sites that enable users to collect, comment on, rate and share web links based on individual interests.
Media Sharing	Web App Gallery, You Tube	Sites or tools that let users upload, share, revise, tag and maintain media including source code, video and audio.
Virtual Worlds	Second Life	Digital worlds that simulate physical or imagined worlds and let users interact through written or vocal dialog and environments.
Social Widgets	Facebook	Compact applications that share information from social feeds, other types of streams, and profiles on another site, often with interaction.
Monitoring, Buzz, Engagement		Sites focused on measuring impact, reach, sentiment, interests, and other aspects of social media engagement.

Most individuals on the internet use tools from at least one category. Many use (or have used) threaded discussion tools like distribution groups, news groups or forums (on dial-up BBS systems or USENet) because they are familiar; other individuals are immersed in Facebook and location-based tools accessed via cell phones or other portable devices.

Individuals and Communities

Individuals are community. Platforms, tools, location and interest help form communities, but individuals are the essential element.

There are many communities with at least a passing interest in Microsoft technology. Many are defined by Microsoft technology or interest. The table below captures some of these communities. As with other sections of this Wiki article, please add others.

Communities Interested in Microsoft Technology

Name	Open/Gated	Description
Microsoft Valued Professionals	Gated	Exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their deep, real-world knowledge about Microsoft technologies with others.

Platform Instances

There are many different instances of the social media tools categorized above. Some are provided and hosted by Microsoft; many more are not. None of the platform instance are themselves the basis of a community -- they are places where issues can be explored, questions answered, and moments shared,  but community transcends them all.

In the sections below, host refers to the entity responsible for providing the community environment bound by a particular platform, rules, governance, and processes. Hosts facilitate community but do not necessarily provide the platform.

Hosted by Microsoft

These are some of the instances hosted by Microsoft. The list will include gated communities open by invitation only and other gated communities mentioned by Microsoft on Microsoft properties. You may not be able to access all of these sites, but in many cases the site itself will describe how you might join.

Not every social media platform instance is open, and not all open instances foster community.

Communities Hosted by Microsoft

Name	Category	O/G	Description
TechNet Forums	Forum	Open	Threaded question and answer platform focused on Microsoft technology and the IT Professional audience. Optimized for short information chunks guided by questions from the community.
MSDN Forums	Forum	Open	Threaded question and answer platform focused on Microsoft technology and the Developer audience.Optimized for short information chunks guided by questions from the community.

Not Hosted by Microsoft

The community ecosystem is diverse. Just about any combination of rules, platform features, governance and etiquette can be found and most preferences accomodated. Our focus will be environments focusing on individuals and groups who are interested in Microsoft technology (including interoperating with Microsoft technology), are more open to participants than gated (or private), and provide a reasonably constructive community experience.

Name	Category	Description
EventID.net	Forum	Provides troubleshooting for Windows events. Contributor community seems to be gated but don't know for sure. Subscribers receive additional information.